BMC produces inexpensive plastic toy soldiers from a variety of historical periods. Admittedly, their sculpts have often been criticized as unattractive compared to those of other makers and they make no pretense of historical accuracy. As plastic toys though, they are good enough and are the perfect choice to bulk up a starter army en masse. Such is the case with thse American Civil War Union soldiers.
These 1:32 figures comprise my very first foray into the American Civil War period. Most of the figures that came in my bagged sets contained mainly foot infantry, a mounted officer and a few cannons and their limbers.
I am not familiar with how armies during that period deployed for battle so I just arranged them in convenient groupings and snapped away.
The horses and the riders came in only one sedate, casual pose. a pity since it would have been nice to have a charging squadron of cavalry on the field.
The cannons came with only one crewman a piece and a single caission. No pile of cannonballs were included, unlike some of the pictures I saw of this set online.
Altogether, I'm happy with this no-frills set. I would've have welcomed more cavalry and artillery poses but a serivceable set nonetheless. We'll see if I decide to include the American Civil War period in my growing toy soldier collection. More soon!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI've used BMC Civil War figures for years--as you say, not exactly works of art, but more than adequate to have fun with! BMC has come out with cavalry for both sides, so people are no longer limited to the generals that come with the bagged sets. They have also come out with new artillery sets, with a better gun and more poses for the artillery crew.
As far as battle formations go, believe it or not, they still used Napoleonic formations (column and line), as their thinking had not caught up with the greater lethality of up-to-date weapons.
Best regards,
Chris Johnson
The Tim Mee ACW guys were the BMC's of the Sixties. We used them - literally - as cannon fodder in sandbox scenarios employing a steel-machined cannon stuffed with DuPont FFG black powder, wadding and daisy BB's ... Airfix rocket fuze set it off. BLAM! the remains were enameled with Testor's "Blood" Red ...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-vintage-TIMMEE-Cival-War-soldiers-over-20-pieces-/230934294426?pt=Toy_Soldiers&hash=item35c4c1af9a
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pylgrym